A look back at how cryptocrime evolved this year

As the hacks and thefts of previous years have risen in both prevalence and severity, cryptocurrency-enabled crime is now considered a more urgent threat to national security. Governments and exchanges have stepped up their response, investigating international crime facilitated by cryptocurrency, sanctioning cryptocurrency addresses, and screening blockchain transactions associated with them.

In addition, while Bitcoin remains a top choice for mainstream users and illicit actors alike, Ethereum, Litecoin, Bitcoin Cash, and other cryptocurrencies have gained traction and attracted new forms of criminal activity.

Investing in multi-currency support

Building trust in blockchains is broader than just Bitcoin. Among investigators who use our software, there’s increasing demand for the inclusion of additional cryptocurrencies, including a burgeoning class of stablecoins and tokens. In response, we overhauled our infrastructure and completely rethought how to best support multiple cryptocurrencies in a single interface.

After significant upgrades, we’re currently testing support for the core functions of Chainalysis Reactor—our cryptocurrency investigation product—on more than 10 cryptocurrencies. This will allow investigators to:

Better analyze the funds involved in money laundering schemes

Track contributions to ICO scams

Identify other forms of illicit activity

Maintaining our rigorous standards

Our relationships with top institutions around the world are built on trust in our data, and we’re committed to ensuring that data for new cryptocurrencies is held to rigorous standards. As such, expanding coverage to multiple cryptocurrencies in our investigation software has been an opportunity to make significant investments in our products from both a technical and security standpoint.

After launching multi-currency Beta functionality this fall, we have our eyes set on a complete rollout, with more than 10 other coins, in early 2019.

Looking forward

In addition to supporting multiple cryptocurrencies next year, new efforts will yield a seamless experience for users investigating the flow of funds across multiple coins.

We're lucky to work with passionate and engaged investigators who spend their days understanding what's happening on the blockchain in order to make the entire space safer for everyone. Without them, we wouldn't be able to accomplish our mission of building trust in blockchains, for all users.

Read the Full Report‍

To get these insights and more on darknet markets, sign up to receive early access to the complete Chainalysis Crypto Crime Report: Decoding hacks, darknet markets, and scams. The report will be released at the end of January but you can sign up now to receive it days before it’s released.

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